The White Sox make five moves to begin the offseason

With the World Series done, the clock officially started for the White Sox to start making some offseason decisions. They didn’t waste any time.

• Matt Davidson and Jake Petricka were reinstated from the 60-day DL
• The $3M option on Matt Albers was declined and he was given a $250K buyout.
• J.B. Shuck was outrighted to Charlotte.
• Daniel Webb was released.

The first three moves were as expected. Petricka’s injury wasn’t arm related, and Davidson seemed to make some significant improvements during the season that put him on the Sox to audition for a long term DH role. Unfortunately, that lasted less than a game.

Parting ways with J.B. Shuck was likely to happen as well for the White Sox. With the addition of Rymer Liriano, now is as good as any other time this offseason. Shuck was previously outrighted by the Astros in 2012, so he can decline the outright assignment and become a free agent if he chooses.

Releasing Daniel Webb is a surprise though. Although several people non-tendered him in the offseason plans, many people thought he still had value for the system and held onto him for depth. Looks like the White Sox chose to end it now rather than non-tender later.

With these moves, the White Sox 40-man roster stands at 39. The second part of this story is that the White Sox press release says the roster is at 37. The White Sox are supposed to have five days to negotiate exclusively with Morneau and Avila. It looks like that’s done already. As for the rest of baseball, teams need to make qualified offers by November 8th. Finally, the GM Meetings will be taking place November 8th through November 10th in Scottsdale, AZ.